Guess who's still alive! ME. Midterms just took my soul a little bit, but here's a little bit of heaven to make up for it! Let me hear your thoughts on it!
"How many miles out?" Hugh asked, pacing the perimeter of the rocking boat's cabin. When consciousness returned to me, there were stiches in my shoulder, a sling binding it to my chest, and a pissed off Wanda feeding Hugh placating lies.
"About 400," Wanda replied, glaring at the hairbrush in her clenched hands. She was more likely to jam it into our captor's eye than attempt to detangle the mess our flight time caused her hair to become.
"So, when we arrive in Guatemala, we acquire our own vessel and sail out to find Joy?" he asked. He'd gone through this conversation three times since my waking and I was ready to stuff him out the port hole and run away with Wanda forever after the first go round.
"Yes," Wanda snapped; the hairbrush snapped in her hands as well, plastic splinters scattering to the stained carpet.
"Why can't you just fly us?" I asked, hoping to derail the conversation.
"I get tired." Hugh shrugged and sipped on the pink PowerAde cradled in his over-sized hands and flopped down to occupy the corner like a dejected child. I guess hauling around two women would be draining even for a zombie guy.
"Cool," I murmured.
When I tried to sit up pain said fuck you and Wanda pushed me back down into the single bed. "Lay still," she commanded. Her dark hair fanned around us, a canopy blocking out the hell I'd woken up in. Or maybe I was dead; she even smelled like an angel would.
"And it's called the Raft?" Hugh asked again.
"Yes. I would know. I've been there before," Wanda replied.
"Casual vacation?" I asked, putting as much pep into my voice as I could muster. The dire situation seemed to swallow it before it could even properly exit my mouth, however .
Wanda glanced down from beneath the hoodie pulled low over her eyes with a bemused expression fighting against the sobriety that threatened to drown us faster than the Gulf of Mexico battering away against the vessel beneath our feet. When had she changed from her matching silk pajama set into regular clothes? Where had she gotten them? More importantly, where were my clothes? From what I could feel I wore only my panties and a tank top. They better not have thrown away my bra, that was my favorite work out bra, though the most extensive workouts I undertook were about on par with my between the sheets activities with Bucky.
Shit Bucky.
"We fought," I muttered deliriously. There was some drug swimming around in my system that made honing in on any one thought an impossible task. "We fought and I don't even think I apologized. We were so drunk. Shit. A prison can't be a literal raft, right? That doesn't seem very effective."
Wanda swatted my good shoulder, ordering me to scoot over on the single bed. Aside from a recliner that leaned heavily to the right and a metal folding card table that was bolted down, the bed was the only furniture in the room. Her bootcut jeans scraped against my bare legs and I hissed as she knocked into my bad shoulder settling in. She lay on her side, body blocking Hugh from my view.
"I forget people need sleep," Hugh chuckled, awkwardly shuffling to the recliner which squeaked in complaint under his hefty weight.
"Of course he doesn't sleep," Wanda muttered darkly.
"You guys like ragtime?" he asked, producing a battered MP3 player from his coat pocket.
"Not so much," Wanda deadpanned.
"Got any white noise? Soothing forest or ocean sounds? That always helps me fall right asleep," I input.
"I'll just be quiet." Hugh hooked up a set of headphones and leaned back until the back of his chair let out a crack and gave way. He would have toppled completely out of it if the wall hadn't caught his progress. He offered a thumbs up and I had to snatch Wanda's hand to keep her from flipping him off in return.
We lay as still as stone for a good half hour, her too tense to sleep and me fighting the urge to throw up whatever medicine they'd coaxed into me every time I shut my eyes. I shifted on my back, blowing a huff of air up towards the glitter covered ceiling. The sheets felt like sand paper scraping me raw and my arm throbbed like the knife was still jammed in there. Finally, unable to take the silence, I peeked over her hip, making certain Hugh was entirely engrossed in his century old music. With a flop, I settled back down and met emerald eyes sharper than any weapon forged by man. Wanda was forged from the tesseract. I was created by an Asgardian, and yet somehow we were both still prisoners.
"How long have we been on this ship?" I asked softly, not trusting the ability of his shabby headphones to completely block out sound.
"9 hours. Can you incapacitate him?" she asked quickly.
"Can he be incapacitated? Also, probably no. Were you there when I faced off against him in Florida? I'm pretty sure if either one of us sneeze funny, this entire ship will go down because he will lose his goddamn mind."
She scowled, putting her hands under her head in a praying position, though it was more likely she was cursing Hugh than asking for sovereign help. "I didn't look like you were doing much of anything except standing there," she clipped.
"Ok, wow thanks. You can take him on yourself since I'm even more useless injured."
"Haven…" she sighed tiredly. I rolled onto my good side, facing away from her, nose pressed against the cool wall. "Do you get the feeling he's not all there?"
"He's dead, of course not."
"Well, I mean, you're still human. I'm still me. He's…he's a shadow, one who can't tell right from wrong. He didn't mean to stab you and I can't figure out whether that terrifies me more or less."
"He's a fucking pansy who can't function without his wife. You're not actually leading him to the Raft, are you?"
"Of course not. I won't let him set that maniac loose or anyone else in there. Tony wanted you put in there when we first captured you. That's why it took us so long to get anything accomplished. That place is for the truly evil and you had a few people still on your side."
"Aww, Wanda, you believed in me?" I fluttered my eyelashes.
"If I believed you were evil, what would I think of myself?"
I dabbed at fake tears and she just shook her head.
"Sally told me Menzel imprinted on me, or me on her. I'm not really sure how that works. But maybe Hugh is drawn to her as well. His powers are stronger than mine, so why not that too?"
"Are we telling ghost stories?" Hugh popped up from behind Wanda. She shrieked and barely staved herself from blasting him through the wall.
"Hugh, how are you so quiet? You are literally the size of a boulder. Huge Hugh, this is girl talk. Go back to your ancient tunes," I scolded, much like a mother, a drugged up mother because he was almost toddler-like in his mannerisms.
He sulked off with a pout pushing out his lower lip. Wanda's muscles did not relax a hair and I began wondering how they didn't cramp from the exertion. After a few minutes, the fresh scent from Wanda's hair along with the soothing rocking motion from the ship on a calmed sea lulled me if not into sleep, then at least a suspended state of time.
Frost coated me carried on every wind from the four corners of the globe and I stood in a still expanse of nothingness—an earth with no sky, no grass, no anything. If I was dead, then I expected a few more male celebrities to roam about before I accept my eternal home.
"It was you," Bucky's voice breathed from directly behind me, voice slicking down my neck with a welcome heat wave.
I spun on my heel, thanking God for at least one pretty face in this nothingness.
"When I was in cryofreeze, I dreamt of a woman, but I never saw her face. It was you, wasn't it? How did you do that? How are you here?" he questioned.
I shrugged.
"You know what? Never mind. Where are you and Wanda? Are you hurt? Do you have anything that can help us take Avatar Frankenstein down?"
"I'm very proud of you for that pop-culture reference."
"Sam's calling him that," Bucky grinned sheepishly.
"He said something about Guatemala and I know we're on a boat. He wants to be taken to the Raft, but Wanda told me we're now hosting the world's biggest wild goose chase so look for us anywhere else," I advised.
"You realize Guatemala is a whole country, right?" Bucky asked. "Also, I don't know how we're doing this or how to reach you again. Because you had me take your goddamn bracelet off. We kept it on for a reason."
"I didn't force you too, Buck."
"You're reckless and irresponsible and being around you makes me behave similarly."
Maybe it was just the worry about my safety talking. Maybe he truly blamed me for what happened. Either way, I dropped it. There was no telling how much time we had and getting into that fight again would do us no good.
"It might be the pain meds allowing us to communicate. I could only reach out to you when you were in cryofreeze. Maybe they mimic that state of stasis. Of course, you weren't breathing, so it was sort of like you were dead. Oh god, I hope I'm not dying."
"Pain meds?"
"You don't remember me getting stabbed?"
"Fuck, what! I don't really remember much after I was, you know, suffocated," Bucky said.
"Oh, well that happened."
"I'm gonna kill him." Bucky didn't seethe or fume with anger. It was just a statement, a plain fact. He would kill Hugh for hurting his friends, for hurting me. And as much as I cared for my sweet protective Bucky, the dark acceptance I felt rippling off him made me take a step away. I guess, I unconsciously pulled away too, because he began to blur around the edges.
"Are you waking up?" he blurted quickly.
"Yeah," I lied.
And he was gone and I was left alone to a dreamless sleep.